The Sixers desperately needed a win, and they went out there and took it from Blake Griffin, the Los Angeles Clippers and possibly the most incompetent group of referees I've ever had the displeasure of watching. Big, big win. Blake Griffin is going to wish he never has to face Elton Brand again when he blows out the candles on his birthday cake tonight.
Charts (rotations coming later)
Thoughts
- The officiating in this game was deplorable. I usually don't comment on the refs once the game is over, because I think they rarely decide the outcome of a game, but tonight they were bad enough to take a win away from the Sixers. I mention them tonight because I think coming out in the third quarter, after the way the second quarter ended, and absolutely putting the Clippers away in the third was a huge gut-check moment for the Sixers. They could've folded. They could've pouted. They could've displayed an immaturity certain teams and players fall back on when the calls don't go their way and given this game away. They went in the opposite direction and shoved it right down the Clippers throats. That says a lot about the character of this team, especially after Collins was tossed, in a game they had to have.
- Player of the game really could've gone to Meeks (22 pts on 7/12 from the floor with 6 boards, 3 dimes, 1 steal and 0 turnovers) or Jrue (20 pts on 8/12 from the floor with 4 boards, 9 assists, 3 turnovers and really excellent play on both sides of the ball the entire second half), but when it comes right down to it, Elton Brand was by far the best big man in this game. He physically dominated Blake Griffin to the point where I thought Griffin was going to cry. When he wasn't manhandling the chosen one, he was coming from the weak side to block every shot he saw. When he wasn't blocking shots, he was grabbing boards. When he wasn't grabbing boards, he was showing hard on the pick-and-roll (later in the game). He was all over the floor tonight, and really set the tone for the entire team, especially after the half.
- The bench was absolutely, positively horrible tonight. Collectively, they had more personal fouls (12) than made field goals (8). Nocioni managed an admirable -11 in only 7 minutes of play. Turner was a non-factor. Lou was detrimental, for the most part, though he did have one stretch where he was making his bad shots. Overall, a game to forget for the bench brigade.
- I'd be remiss if I didn't mention three humongous plays Jrue made to put this game away. Early in the fourth, the Clippers made a run when Collins was using a Jrue, Lou and Turner on the perimeter. As usual, Jrue was standing in the corner while Lou dribbled the air out of the ball. On one particular possession, Turner missed a long two, and Jrue snuck into the lane to grab an offensive board. He dribbled out to the perimeter to reset the offense, then drove right, all the way to the baseline. When three Clippers collapses on him, he kicked the ball cross-court for a wide-open Lou three, which Lou nailed. That put an end to a 10-0 Clipper run and pushed the Sixer lead back to double digits. The sad thing here is that Jrue only got to run the offense after grabbing the offensive board and basically setting it back up himself. Every play prior to that in the fourth was for Lou to "initiate." I get why Collins, or Curry in this case, is hesitant to give the kid the ball in the fourth, he did have a couple of turnovers late tonight, but when the offense is stagnant, and Jrue is having a great game, throw caution to the wind. The kid can get the job done and I still think Jrue penetration is the absolute best thing this team does in the half court, when he's on.
- Kudos to Collins for getting tossed. It was absolutely called for and seemed to light a fire under his team.
- Blake Griffin is going to have to get a whole hell of a lot tougher if/when the Clippers ever make it to the playoffs. He crumbled to the Sixers physical interior defense tonight, and the Sixers are far from a stout team up front.
- That's all I've got. This was very, very important game and the Sixers stood tall. Up Next: DeMarcus Cousins, who may try to stab someone if the Sixers give him the same treatment Blake Griffin got tonight.
Player of The Game: Elton Brand
Team Record: 35-33
Up Next: @ SAC, Friday night
Playoff Race: Tied w/ NYK for 6th, 4 games back of ATL for 5th.
I agree with you. As bad as NBA refs are - I've never seen calls this bad with the possible exception of the NBA Finals vs LA in 2001 (sorry but some calls were horrendous 3 fouls in the 1st 30 seconds of a game against the 76ers?) This probably beats that. The refs seemed intent on trying to give Blake and the Clippers this game but the 76ers said "No way!" Big play by Meeks, Brand and Jrue!
I'll never forget the elbow Shaq threw to Mutombo's face early in the game (1?). The ref was looking right at it and let it go.
Sixers get past the Clippers:
http://ow.ly/4gdN6
Starters: 82 points, plus-108
Reserves: 22 points, minus-58
Tom,
The only reserve who played significant minutes in this game was Lou. So really, the +/- thing is a pretty useless stat in this game. Not sure why you bothered to post that.
the fact that the bench was -58 in limited minutes makes their performance even worse.
Nocioni was incredibly bad
Exactly.
are you in Cali? would love to know what Doug had to say after the game.
No sailing pun in the title?:)
http://dvsportsblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/blake-griffin-injury-20081217_jes_bv3_902.jpg
Jodie is playing much better than I thought he was capable of. He's been a really big part of the success of this team, I didn't think what he was doing was at all sustainable. He's been pretty damn consistent night in and night out though, dare I say "nice trade Ed"?
I'm thrilled with what Meeks has given the team this year - his numbers since the beginning of Feb are really solid.
That trade was definietly a "win" for Stefanski.
Turner is only 5 months older than Griffin.
Take that for whatever it's worth.
watched the replay of the flagrant again, Blake shoved a referee. isn't that a suspension of some sort?
Not if you're Blake Griffin.
Sports Center was kind to Battie, saying he'll be exonerated.
Of course, they showed the one dunk and drooled over his block, and didn't even mention Jodie putting it back in, which the video showed.
Can anyone tell me why Mo got that T? I was at the game and didn't even know about it until after the half. The crowd also acted like Battie shot their dogs. The crowd was as hostile as ever to Brand as usual, but Jrue had some fans cheering him on as much as the Clips.
If one thing is apparent, it's that the overwhelming majority of the crowd was there to see Griffin dunking on people, and they left sorely disappointed.
I heard he was "jawing" with Griffin as they left the court at the end of the first half. Never saw any footage of it.
it's kind of disturbing that it feels like that's all the crowd came to do. It's one thing to have an exciting player and want to see highlight reel plays, it's another thing to not even understand when your team is playing horrible basketball and your coach can't even call a TO.
they wasted their Boos on Brand tonight, or should I say good thing they did.
Seriously Jordan and Griffin seemed to be trying to dunk everything just to get the crowd revved up.
http://philaphans.com/sixers/files/2011/03/480FTA.jpg
check out this chart, courtesy of Philaphans.com
8 FT in 0.9 secs.
talk about Ball don't lie... 2/8 from the line during those 0.9 seconds.
I missed the game and haven't seen the highlights yet either. Sounds like the kind of bounce back game we were all hoping for?
Just to back up EB's performance - in two games vs. Clippers:
Brand:
42.8% Shooting (12-28), 17 ppg, 9 reb, 3.5 o-reb
Blake:
32.1% Shooting (9-28)/17ppg/8 reb, 5 o-reb
I'm certain it's a team effort, but you can definitely make the case that Brand plays Griffin as well as anyone in the league.
Other interesting statistic:
DeAndre Jordan: 100% FG (13-13)/15.5 ppg/10.5 rpg, 3.5 O
Wow.
(I didn't have enough coffee this morning, and I hope my math is OK. Thanks)
Jordan has such a high FG% because all he offers on offense is putbacks. Seriously he is much worse than Dalambert on offense. I wouldn't buy into those numbers too much.
Agreed. Still cool.
Griffin's regular stats:
50% fg/21.2 ppg/12.2 reb
Dalembert had a pretty impressive line last night.
http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=310316023
Dalambert has been putting up big numbers for a while now. The Kings are the worst team in basketball, so those numbers don't say too much about his game. They say more about Cousins's ineptitude.
Interesting game, and a much-needed win against a team that had been playing well at home.
My observations:
* Was I the only one hoping the Clippers would make their second free throws, just so DeAndre Jordan wouldn't get the offensive rebound?
* Speaking of D-Jordan, his form at the line is the ugliest of anyone this side of Chris Dudley.
* Thad has now been slumping for the past five games (6.2 PPG, 33% shooting), ever since the Pacers game (one of his best of the season). Hopefully it's just a slump, but I notice teams are playing off him, expecting a drive.
* Jodie Meeks might be a career backup, but this month he's averaging 15 PPG on 49/46/93 shooting, 4 RPG, and 1.2 SPG (and 3 3's per game). You could do a lot worse in a starting 2-guard, as the Sixers would know from recent history.
* Iguodala's shot was off (and his gait wasn't entirely smooth), but he still wound up holding Gomes and Aminu to zero points while he was guarding them (Aminu's five points came while Iguodala was on the bench). That should help Iguodala's defensive PER, though Gomes would help anyone's defensive PER.
* While I don't advocate dirty play, this game clearly showed the benefit of hard fouls, as Griffin threw up some crazy shots expecting contact that never came.
* Nice bounce-back effort by Jrue after two bad games. Amazing how much better the team looks when he plays well. In addition to his offensive outburst in the 4th, he had some really good moments on D vs. Bledsoe.
So the Sixers finally tie the Knicks, who have a tough game tonight vs. the Grizzlies. Interesting to see how well Tony Allen defends Carmelo. Speaking of Carmelo, his former Nuggets moved to 9-2 since the trade, and they've gone from one of my least favorite teams to watch to one of my (non-Sixer) favorites. Actually, the current Nuggets are kind of Sixers-West. (George Karl quote from last night: "Everybody had their moment. It's kind of a fun team. I don't know who's going to finish most nights." Or Kenyon Martin: "It's fun to play basketball the right way. ... When everybody's out there sharing the ball, everybody's involved, it just makes everyone want to play that much harder on the defensive end.") The looming 1st-round matchup with OKC will put tk76's non-superstar vs. superstar theory to the test.
"he had some really good moments on D vs. Bledsoe."
My favorite was when he rode him all the way to the baseline on a drive and bledsoe basically just fell out of bounds when he didn't have a corner to turn.
Completely agree about the Nuggets. The Thunder are going to be a really difficult task because i feel like they play great team basketball despite relying heavily on two superstars, but it'll definitely be a fun matchup.
"* Speaking of D-Jordan, his form at the line is the ugliest of anyone this side of Chris Dudley."
Saw him in December. During halftime, he bricked 9 in a row.
Watching Griffing bitch, flop, whine and pout the entire game was a complete embarrassment.....when an innocuous screen caused him to flop backwards into his teammates face and put him down for the count, I couldn't help but smile....what a puss.
Why do the Clippers start Ryan gomes ahead of Al Farouq Aminu? Gomes is useless and Aminu has potential. The Clippers are out of the playoffs, so why aren't they giving Aminu minutes and letting him develop?
Aminu looks good at times but completely clueless on others. I guess they are trying to teach him to play the right way.
Thinking ahead a little bit but do you guys think that with a 6 game lead over the 8 seed that we can expect extended off time for Iggy/Brand before the playoffs to heal up? I'd rather see these guys as close to 100% come playoff time, it doesn't really matter to me if we play Boston or Miami. What do you guys think the sixers strategy will be?
Not really. The fifth and sixth seed are up there for the taking. Unless something drastic happens i don't expect any rest from the key players.
The sixth seed is obviously within reach, the five seed is a pipe dream after blowing the two winnable games against Utah and Milwaukee while Atlanta was winning their last two games (before last night). The chances before the road trip started were slim. The dud they laid in the first two eminently winnable games pretty much made is next to impossible.
Resting players, taking them out of their normal rhythm never makes sense to me
I think if those two losses taught us anything, it's that this team cannot afford to coast. They need to keep the pedal to the medal the rest of the way, otherwise they're lost. Rest in June.